Chapter XVI

Strange Phenomenon of the Dissociation of Matter

(Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille, continued)

“I am again at the window-sill,” continues Rouletabille, “and once

more I raise my head above it. Through an opening in the curtains, the

arrangement of which has not been changed, I am ready to look, anxious

to note the position in which I am going to find the murderer,—whether

his back will still be turned towards me!—whether he is still seated

at the desk writing! But perhaps—perhaps—he is no longer there!—Yet

how could he have fled?—Was I not in possession of his ladder? I force

myself to be cool. I raise my head yet higher. I look—he is still

there. I see his monstrous back, deformed by the shadow thrown by the

candle. He is no longer writing now, and the candle is on the parquet,

over which he is bending—a position which serves my purpose.

“I hold my breath. I mount the ladder. I am on the uppermost rung

of it, and with my left hand seize hold of the window-sill. In this

moment of approaching success, I feel my heart beating wildly. I

put my revolver between my teeth. A quick spring, and I shall be on

the window-ledge. But—the ladder! I had been obliged to press on it

heavily, and my foot had scarcely left it, when I felt it swaying

beneath me. It grated on the wall and fell. But, already, my knees were

touching the window-sill, and, by a movement quick as lightning, I got

on to it.

“But the murderer had been even quicker than I had been. He had heard

the grating of the ladder on the wall, and I saw the monstrous back of

the man raise itself. I saw his head. Did I really see it?—The candle

on the parquet lit up his legs only. Above the height of the table the

chamber was in darkness. I saw a man with long hair, a full beard,

wild-looking eyes, a pale face, framed in large whiskers,—as well as I

could distinguish, and, as I think—red in colour. I did not know the

face. That was, in brief, the chief sensation I received from that

face in the dim half-light in which I saw it. I did not know it—or, at

least, I did not recognise it.

“Now for quick action! It was indeed time for that, for as I was about

to place my legs through the window, the man had seen me, had bounded

to his feet, had sprung—as I foresaw he would—to the door of the

ante-chamber, had time to open it, and fled. But I was already behind

him, revolver in hand, shouting ‘Help!’

“Like an arrow I crossed the room, but noticed a letter on the table

as I rushed. I almost came up with the man in the ante-room, for he

had lost time in opening the door to the gallery. I flew on wings,

and in the gallery was but a few feet behind him. He had taken, as

I supposed he would, the gallery on his right,—that is to say, the

road he had prepared for his flight. ‘Help, Jacques!—help, Larsan!’

I cried. He could not escape us! I raised a shout of joy, of savage

victory. The man reached the intersection of the two galleries hardly

two seconds before me for the meeting which I had prepared—the fatal

shock which must inevitably take place at that spot! We all rushed to

the crossing-place—Monsieur Stangerson and I coming from one end of

the right gallery, Daddy Jacques coming from the other end of the same

gallery, and Frédéric Larsan coming from the ‘off-turning’ gallery.

“The man was not there!

“We looked at each other stupidly and with eyes terrified. The man had

vanished like a ghost. ‘Where is he—where is he?’ we all asked.

“‘It is impossible he can have escaped!’ I cried, my terror mastered by

my anger.

“‘I touched him!’ exclaimed Frédéric Larsan.

“‘I felt his breath on my face!’ cried Daddy Jacques.

“‘Where is he?—where is he?’ we all cried.

“We raced like madmen along the two galleries; we visited doors and

windows—they were closed, hermetically closed. They had not been

opened. Besides, the opening of a door or window by this man whom we

were hunting, without our having perceived it, would have been more

inexplicable than his disappearance?

“Where is he?—where is he?—He could not have got away by a door or a

window, nor by any other way. He could not have passed through our

bodies!

“I confess that, for the moment, I felt ‘done for.’ For the gallery was

perfectly lighted, and there was neither trap, nor secret door in the

walls, nor any sort of hiding-place. We moved the chairs and lifted the

pictures. Nothing!—nothing! We would have looked into a flower-pot, if

there had been one to look into!”

When this mystery, thanks to Rouletabille, was naturally explained, by

the help alone of his masterful mind, we were able to realise that the

murderer had got away neither by a door, a window, nor the stairs—a

fact which the judges would not admit.